


Severus Snape and the One Who Slithers in

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Betrayal, Forbidden Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 03:19:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16109684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Severus and Igor have been separated by circumstances for years. The Goblet of Fire Tournament at Hogwarts brings them together once again.





	Severus Snape and the One Who Slithers in

**Author's Note:**

> posting this for a friend of mine. they wrote this as their final work for a class in our grad program.  
> grad school is weird y'all.

Hogwarts was just so much better in the summers when the students emptied out of it. The place wasn’t quite still, what, with staircases moving and members of paintings slipping off for visits or even trysts with some of the propriety of the school year suspended. The castle was alive enough that Severus Snape never felt quite lonely in it. The place had been a home to him when he had had none, like so many other students before and more than he’d like to acknowledge after. He had his favorite corners, nothing above the ground floor naturally, and certain members of certain paintings that he had actually grown quite close with. There was a portrait of a mime hanging just past his office that had finally spoken to him after his 20th year in the castle, but in general the whole of the castle had always felt welcoming to him, even if he hated that they called his actual home within it the dungeon. As if the associations of the word weren’t enough, think medieval torture or dark and musty depending on how dark you are, the word itself was ugly. To Snape, it had always suggested the sound of pulling a rubber boot from the mud, and while getting dirty to collect ingredients might be an occupational hazard, why would they attach such a meaning to the place that had seen him through from boyhood to now? The place that had housed so many other youths like him, the ones who didn’t quite fit in the founders’ view of things. They say cunning. They say ambitious. People go so far as to cast dirtier words than that, but there was something else too, wasn’t there?

This summer in particular had allowed Snape free reign of the castle. As always so many of the teachers had disappeared as quickly as they could. Minerva stayed true to her position and slunk off just after the students left to find any tomcat in Hogsmeade that might catch her eye; not that Snape was judging, it was certainly hard to keep any kind of normal social life as a teacher here. Hagrid was off to rustle up some new monstrosity, heavily encouraged by Madame Pomfrey, Snape could see her licking her lips to find out what new ailment she’d be curing this year. Flitwick was on a speaking tour, still staying busy and engaged with the public after so many years cooped up in the castle. So it was every year, each one of the teachers had the things they did in the summer, the “lives” they were leading three months out of the year, and they all went off to live them. Everyone except Snape. Well, Snape and Dumbledore most years. Dumbledore would stay behind and get the school ready for the coming year, but this year he was off arranging for this damned tournament. Snape had been happy for the silence at first. He was fine to have Dumbledore out of sight, to not be reminded of his bargains for a time, but he did grow to miss him. Most days, whether they spent any other time together or not, he and Dumbledore would walk through the gardens. Sometimes they’d talk, sometimes they’d stay silent, but always Snape got the chance to spend a part of his day with someone he knew understood him. All of him.

With Dumbledore gone Snape spent his mornings in the Forbidden forest, foraging for ingredients or stealing a look at the centaurs if given the chance. He didn’t go in much for magical beasts, generally preferred plants and their predictable ways to the goings on of living things, but centaurs had always had something purely magnetic about them; he took every chance he got to steal away to the forest and watch the herd pass. Once he’d even gotten the chance to watch from the shadows a lone centaur bending its knees, bringing its lips to the surface of a stream, and drinking deeply. Snape held his breath until the centaur came away from the water and bounded off into the woods. He had never managed to replicate that afternoon, the majesty of it, the way his lungs had hardly fit his chest after, but every time he saw the centaurs he could feel that stretch against his ribs again, even if only slightly. On days when he did manage to come upon an unsuspecting centaur, he’d linger in the woods longer, hoping that they might discover him in turn, waiting behind some tree, anxiously aware of the bits of moisture on the moss his back pressed into, even able to name the kinds of moss on each tree he had hid behind that day. If he didn’t see a centaur, he gathered ingredients until his bag was full before heading back to the castle. This time of the summer he was still able to search for his personal stocks and only pick materials for class when he came upon them; come August he would have to focus on filling out the cabinets of his curriculum. 

Once in the castle he went about things like it was a normal day. He’d take his morning meal in the dining hall. It had a quiet to it when he was alone in it that he particularly enjoyed. The magic sky flitted above him and with no one around, well certainly no students, he was able to gorge himself on every delicacy that was put in his path away from prying eyes. If there was another professor at the table it was understood that they were to eat everything that they wanted, that life at a boarding school for a professor was one that limited pleasure and you had to take it where you could. As much as he enjoyed eating by himself, when he got the chance to share that forbidden gluttony with one of his colleagues, even the ones he didn’t quite get on with, he relished in it. There was rarely conversation, just an endless path of hand to mouth, never pausing to wipe away the liquid that dribbled from their lips, too intent on enjoying the moment. Propriety be damned.

Once he was properly filled, he made his way down to his office to check the morning’s post. Professors were allowed to keep their own owls if they wanted, but Snape had never quite understood why he’d want to. He had an owl as a boy. He’d clamored for one, just as all wizarding children clamor for their first owl, particularly those of mixed blood families. He’d saved and saved his money simply to be able to afford his own owl, taken on extra duties around the school, done every single thing he could just to get the thing. It was loyal, as all owls are loyal, a loyalty that Snape had often believed was mistaken for love where he saw only hunger. The things turned food into letters and that was all well and good, Hogwarts afforded him the opportunity to not pay for the food and still get the letters. There was no good reason that Snape could see why an adult in his situation would keep their own owl. The school owls had the added advantage of not being starved for attention, not having been raised as one part pet they didn’t expect any kind of affection upon completing their task, only that they be fed on their regular schedule. 

Most mornings there was nothing exciting in the post. This summer he had updates from Dumbledore occasionally, something that he’d thought of, some task he needed completed, sometimes even a secret he had been meaning to share. While Snape was happy for the continued contact with the man, it was always nice to have a friendship affirmed from afar, the letters just made his absence that much sharper. Standing alone in his office reading Dumbledore’s letters was the most aware he was that he missed the old man, his curved glasses that hinted at a certain sense for fashion that wasn’t quite allowed by the uniforms of Hogwarts.

Now while some morning Snape found himself standing reading those words from Dumbledore, this particular morning, exactly one month before the first night of the school year and the haphazard arrival of its students, there was a purple envelope trembling on his desk. Unlike it’s louder, much more oft received counterpart the Howler, Growlers didn’t shout their message at you if left unopened. In fact, they had a tendency to do something much worse. An unopened Growler would start to moan the name of its recipient along with the steamier parts of its contents. One of many reasons they weren’t allowed for the students of Hogwarts. He briefly considered waiting, seeing if Filch might hear the thing moaning at him before he opened it, but he never had much patience in those small moments.

“S, Dearest,” a familiar voice rasped longing from the envelope. “It has been so long, I wonder if you have waited with me, for me. There has not been a night I have not spent in agony, in ecstasy, thinking of the nights we had together. I shall be at the castle this year, at that school once more, and we can renew what we so long ago had lost. I can still see the parts of your body I miss the most. Each night I kiss the small of your back, the divot in your ribs. Each night my longing is born anew, and there you are, or that one picture I have of you, unmoving, naked, smiling back at me. God, do I wish we had been able to take that with a proper camera. What would it whisper to me in the dark? Oh, how I long to bring my skin to yours once more. Soon, dearest, soon. Kisses and more, K.”

Snape sat at his desk and tried to calm his breathing. It had been more than a decade since he had any kind of personal message from Karkaroff. It hadn’t been safe to talk after they had returned to the ranks of the wizarding world. Even with their places in the academy, everyone would only see them as their attachment to Voldemort. No one had the time to see the ways in which the Death Eaters were cast out, the ways in which they were rejected while the muggles were practically coddled. Snape had never been particularly comfortable with the ways that Voldemort wanted to find the acceptance they had all so desperately craved, but he understood exactly why he felt he had to push back in that way, why he had to rise to the top and make himself known, why he had to cast off the name Tom, the boy that came with it, and become the thing that society at large feared so much. And when he had done that, he was electric. The people who found comfort in his arms, even if they had to hide behind masks to receive it, it was no wonder that they were willing to go to any length for him. No one had ever told Snape that it was alright to be what he was, what he had always been. There was no place for a queer wizard. This much was clear. Even Dumbledore, Albus the great and powerful, had counseled Snape to leave his desires behind him, to never indulge for fear of being discovered. And was he wrong? The ones who were discovered were cast into Azkaban, questioned about anyone they had ever associated with, and forced to denounce any of those moments where they go to live as themselves in the open. For some the price was too high. They chose to be sent to daily torture rather than renounce those freedoms. None of it had been even close to fair. They’d all been offered their first chance at any kind of open life, the cost of which was the mark of a madman, and then they had to choose to either publicly out their community or be tortured for those brief moments of happiness. 

Through so many of those trials Snape had been forced to sit and watch as one after another of his fellows were dragged in front of the council, unmasked, and broken. Dumbledore had said it would look better if he sat there in the open. So, Snape had been in the room when Karkaroff had hissed Snape’s own name. It had hurt, then. With time, he had come to understand why it had been done, why Karkaroff had given him up. Seeing the dementors on Hogwarts ground personally had helped him understand. Even with the safety concerns, Snape wondered if that was why Karkaroff had never even tried to contact him, if the shame had been too much. And now, all these years later, this growler had appeared on his desks and spoken all the things he had worked so hard not imagine on these long, lonely nights. He could still remember Karkaroff, in his thick accent, explaining that longing was a pleasure all its own, and Snape had taken that to heart, living in the longing he had been gifted so long ago. So much of the world Dumbledore had given back to him was exactly that, living in the internal, keeping everything to yourself but your work, and even there he had tried to show the same level of restraint, never quite having a passion for potions. He had been asking for the Dark Arts classes for so long he couldn’t remember if he truly wanted to teach it or if it would just bring him closer to that past, those happy days where he had curled himself into the spindled curve of Karkaroff’s arms and found each gap in his ribs. He suspected it didn’t matter, anyhow.

 

Snape stood next to the waterside, watching. Durmstrang’s ship sat level on the surface, never shifting with the movements of the water. He had come down to get a closer look, to see if he could guess which window was Karkaroff’s. He hadn’t been shocked when he saw the Durmstrang ship puncture the surface of the water, as with all of the professors he had prior warning as to how and when they would be arriving. Dumbledore had looked over at Snape while saying that Karkaroff would be leading the delegation as their headmaster. Did he know? Dumbledore had never asked those kinds of questions of Snape, he’d never wanted to know those details, only caring about the people that were tortured and killed, and there were plenty of people tortured and killed, only wanting to carry the more popular, simpler story of the power-hungry wizard and his bloodthirsty followers. Still, Albus always had a way of learning those things that no one else knew and keeping them to himself. Most people wouldn’t be able to contain those multitudes. So it was standing there, thinking about the secrets that Albus Dumbledore may or may not know, that he was surprised by one Igor Karkaroff, only slightly less imposing than he had been in the dining hall in his more formal headmaster’s robes, dressed for presentation. Since opening the Growler Snape had known this moment would come, that he would be standing alone somewhere with Karkaroff, that everything that had been between them once would push its way back to the top. The thing was, that in that everything was so many conflicting emotions, Snape had no guidepost as to which ones would come up first. Exciting as it was to see his old lover once again, he had been scared to learn which would win the day. On first sight, and after the surprise fell away, it seemed like it might just be anger first.

“Severus,” Karkaroff’s voice was equal parts coo and growl, “What are you doing here?”

This was not a question Snape had prepared for. He had made his way down to the water’s edge assuming that he would not be discovered by anyone he could not order back to their own dormitory. Now, faced by the very man he had come to spy on, he wasn’t quite sure what to say. 

“I’m just out for my evening walk, Igor. You’ll find that I pass this way often.”

“I think you are being dishonest, but, even still, I hope that last part is true. I wouldn’t mind having you close by my chambers.” Snape could feel his cheeks get hot. There were very few moments in his life when he had color in his face and this man was at the center of so many of them. “You sent no response to my letter, Severus, I wasn’t sure what to expect upon arrival, but you seem,” he paused, “friendly enough.”

“We were instructed to be hospitable.” Snape was desperately trying to keep a hard line to his voice. He wasn’t sure that even he believed the cold air he was putting on was little more than a way of flirting.

“Is that it, then? Did Albus send you down here as a hospitality?”

Snape lungs pulled tight. Oh, to just say yes, accept that pretense and be led aboard that great ship to test the limits of its sturdiness.

“A very charming proposal, but as I said, I was simply out for my evening walk and stopped to take in the stars.” 

This kind of lie had never been one that Severus was good at. The much bigger kind, the kind that Dumbledore had asked him again and again to undertake, those came naturally to him, but on this smaller stuff the same tactics failed him. He dug in his heels, stuck to his story, and pushed forward to the point of being backed into a corner.

“I too have only stopped to take in the beautiful sights your school has to offer.” 

Karkaroff’s eyes didn’t move from Severus’s own. His eyes had a way of looking wet that Severus had never seen anywhere else. Not in the way that he looked like he was about to cry, where there was just extra moisture on top of the eye, but the eyes themselves had a soft wetness to them that tended to lull people into a different kind of comfort.

“Igor, kiss me.” 

The words hung on the air. They lingered there as if aware of the fact that Severus had been trying his hardest not to say them, and now that they were out in the world and free they were going to get everything they could out of that freedom. They weren’t the only ones capitalizing on that moment. Karkaroff, perhaps a little too excited by the very thing he had been wanting for months, or perhaps just out of practice, came upon Snape so fast that their teeth clicked together and sent a sharp sensation up through both of their heads. This did not slow either of them down. They stood by the water’s edge catching up on things neither man had been able to do in years. They had been practically children when they had last been together, and certainly more inexperienced than many of the teenagers who had what the wizarding world considered more conventional tastes. Snape certainly wasn’t counting how long they had been kissing, but he still pushed away in a panic when he heard a creaking sound, like a foot on a step, in the distance.  
“What was that?”

“Nothing, Dearest, don’t be so paranoid.”

“I- I must return to the castle. There is work to be done.” Snape shrugged Karkaroff’s hands off of him and turned to leave.

“What is there to be done, Severus? It is the first night of the school year, stay, even just a minute longer.”

“I cannot. I’m sure your students need you as well.”

Snape turned and left. He knew that Karkaroff stood there, watching him, well past his departure.

 

Snape’s arm had been burning for weeks. It had started as small sharp moments of pain. He’d wake in the night with his arm feeling like something had pierced the skin and grab it only to find unbroken skin. It had happened twice in front of his class forcing him to grimace and pretend as if nothing happened. By the placement of the pain, and the headlines from the Quidditch World Cup, he knew what was happening. His Dark Mark was awakening, like so much left behind by Voldemort when his body had left the world. Soon it would appear in its entirety. The professorial robes could be a burden in the hotter weather, but Snape found himself very thankful for working and living in a place where people were always fully sleeved. Snape had been 21 the night of Voldemort’s original departure. Younger still when he had received the tattoo on his arm, or the first kisses of Karkaroff. For the most part, Voldemort had been an old man leading a gang of young men and women who had never been allowed to be themselves. Voldemort had grown sick of things, he lured them all in talking about the new world they would build, the new normal, that all of them could live in the open, come out as queer and be seen as powerful for it. He had failed to mention the way that they would build this new world until it was too late. Until they were already branded not just outsiders but as radicals, as members of a dangerous faction. Then, for Snape at least, there had been Dumbledore on the other side waiting with open arms. He made two requests of Snape, absolute loyalty and that Snape not try and live openly. Ironically, Voldemort had almost the same specifications, granted the opposite for the second condition. Snape had jumped at the opportunity. He’d gotten himself into a world he didn’t understand or belong to in the violence that Voldemort brought along with him. Snape had just wanted to lay with Karkaroff in a field somewhere, feel the scratch of that beard against his much cleaner chin, and name every cloud that passed them by. To get away from the violence, even that which he had himself perpetrated, all he had to do was give up that dream. He had said yes.

But now, here was Karkaroff dogging his every step, a dream come to life to haunt his days. Snape had picked stability all those years ago, the happiness he’d been offered had been on someone else’s terms, the road in front of him had been too unreasonable, too high of a cost for what lay at the end. Still here that happiness was skulking around every corner to remind him what he’d been missing all these years, what would have filled that empty place in his ribs. Since the night by the water Snape had done everything he could to avoid Karkaroff. Twice now he’d had to leave his lectures with his students just to avoid being asked questions he had no answer to. With the addition of the pain in his arm there was no chance that Snape would be hanging around to talk not only about the return of their now oft interrupted passions, but also the return of the very man who had brought them together in the first place. Voldemort was out there, somewhere, clawing his way back into life. Snape knew he was. He’d gone to Dumbledore immediately upon the first pain in his arm and told him what was happening. Albus had been expecting it. The old man almost smiled over the words, always pleased by his cleverness, even when he was predicting the pains of others. 

Snape and Karkaroff had gotten their Dark Marks together. They were all offered a choice. Get the Mark and commit for life, or leave that day, disgraced but not hunted. He and Karkaroff spent their decision time together walking through the woods, fingers intertwined.

“What if we didn’t, Dearest? What if we left now, together, while we still can?” Karkaroff had looked over for not just an answer, but to see if the question itself was allowed.

“And go where, Igor? Where could we live that they wouldn’t come for us? Two wizards together out in the world?”

“We’d make it work; I know we could. The two of us could.”

“No, this is the only way. Voldemort will take us to a new world, he’ll take us to somewhere where you and I can be like this anywhere we want.”

Karkaroff’s eyes shimmered skepticism.

“If you say so, Dearest. I will stay if you say so.”

They had kissed deeply then. There had been so many opportunities for those deep kinds of kisses back then, the kind that reaffirm those things that exist between you that people can’t exactly see. The kiss by the water had a little of that in it, but it was still slowly returning. All things come in waves or they don’t come at all.

It was lost in this memory that Snape found himself finally cornered by Karkaroff himself, as if Snape had conjured him into being just by thinking his name.

“You have been avoiding me, I think.” 

“Please, Igor, I’m just very busy here. We are running a school not just a sporting event, after all.”

“I know what I know, Dearest.”

Karkaroff smiled and Snape knew that last word was a challenge.

“Not here.” The words emerged icy from his lips. “My office.”

“Lead the way.”

They walked in relative silence through the hall, but Snape could see that the composure Karkaroff had always maintained for him was somehow diminished. There were cracks around the edges. Snape felt his eyes drift to Karkaroff’s forearm, covered by robes, and wondered if his Mark was returning as well. Luckily his office wasn’t far, he didn’t leave the dungeons when he didn’t have to. Once inside Karkaroff hardly waited for the door to close before he let his front crumble.

“It’s back, Dearest. He’s back.” Karkaroff had started to push his sleeve up to show the Mark that was appearing there. “And yours? Does it burn like mine does?”

“Of course it does. Calm down. Dumbledore will know exactly what to do. He always does.” 

“That old fool. You put too much faith in him.”

“He’s delivered on every promise he’s made to me. Kept me safe all these years.”

“Kept you caged, you mean.”

“Must we be cruel, Igor?”

Snape brought his hand to Karkaroff’s cheek.

“I’m sorry, Severus, I’m just so scared. If he is back, where can I go?”

“Albus will know what to do.”

“That old man helps only who he wants to,” Karkaroff pushed Snape’s hand away as he spoke, “only those he thinks can help him and what do I have to offer?”

“Gave everything you had back at the Ministry, did you?”

Snape could see his words had hit their target. Karkaroff mouth hung open for a moment, closed altogether then slowly opened to form his retort.

“I’m sorry, Dearest. You don’t know the shame I’ve lived with for saying your name, that perfect beautiful name. You would have done the same if a Dementor breathed down your neck.”

“Would I have? I don’t know that that’s true.”

“We both cut our deals and turned our backs on people. Don’t be so high and mighty about this Severus. You weren’t there for me. I woke up one day and you were just gone and then there you are with that old man in the council chamber listening to me say your name.”

His words stung Snape. He had thought he’d forgiven Karkaroff for offering his name. He had never considered that his own departure could be viewed as a betrayal by anyone but Voldemort and his most loyal, particularly not someone who, at the end, had wanted out as desperately as he had. 

“Igor, I-”

Karkaroff cut him off. 

“I’m not here to talk about old betrayals, Dearest. What we did is in the past now, and we have to find our own ways to live with it, but what is happening today, that we can come to together.”

Karkaroff held his hand out to Snape, who took it and kissed each knuckle.

“Dumbledore will know what to do.”

Karkaroff let out an exasperated sigh.

“You trust him more than you trust me, Dearest.”

“I made my promises. I intend to keep them.”

“As you were then.”

This time Snape was left to watch as Karkaroff left, able to hear his footsteps in the hallway long past the time he vanished from the doorway. 

 

Snape stood outside the hedge maze with the rest of the crowd to watch the final round of the Tournament. He had wanted so badly to tease Karkaroff about Hogwarts’ position at the front of the standings, to see him squirm, but they hadn’t spoken since that afternoon in his office. At this point the avoidance was clearly mutual. Snape mostly watched him through the elapsed time of the round. There wasn’t much point to staring at a hedge maze waiting for a flare to emerge. Maybe a quarter of the way into things Karkaroff turned and did the same. They hadn’t had a moment for this in the entire time they’d been at the school together, to just sit and stare at one another, to see your own desire mirrored back at you. Snape drank in the moment, swallowing as much of it as he could. He would be thankful later, as by the end of the night Karkaroff would be gone, and he would be alone, again. 

Once Potter emerged bloody and clutching himself to the corpse of his classmate and fellow competitor there was no question for Severus but to go to Karkaroff immediately. For once, his responsibilities fell to the wayside, and he allowed himself to be swept up in the moment, in the feeling of it all. There was nothing he wanted more than to feel those arms on either side of his head and be told that they’d make it through this together. They could present themselves at Dumbledore’s office, and Snape could make the case for keeping Karkaroff on. He’d be an asset to the school with his own educational and administrative experience, and he wasn’t a slouch of a wizard. Plus having another of Voldemort’s castoffs around could prove useful. Dumbledore was always playing the long game with everyone around him, he’d have to see the utility of the idea at the very least. Snape was sure it would work.

Apparently Karkaroff had the same idea as Snape because they found each frantically searching the field, clearly looking for one person in a crowd. They managed to slip into the darkness to allow themselves for privacy. For them, there was never a moment where they weren’t aware of who might be watching. Wizards were very strict when it came to tradition and convention, and sexuality was no different. It would be the end of both of them to be seen together now, especially if Voldemort truly had returned. It had been hard enough returning to the world with the suspicious glances that accompanied their lives, to have themselves fully outed now would be irreconcilable. 

“Dearest, are you alright?”

“A little scared, but I’m exactly where I need to be.”

Snape wasn’t sure if it was the magic of the moment of the strength of his feeling, but he’d already come this far and he wasn’t going to deny himself a second of this.

“It is ok, we are ok. We are safe as long as we’re together.”

Snape planted a quick kiss on Karkaroff’s lips.

“Things will get bad, Igor. We have to have a plan.”

“I have a plan. I have been preparing for this.”

“Stay here. We’ll talk to Dumbledore. He’ll keep you on here in some capacity, and we can be close to each other, always.”

“Close is not together, Dearest. I have a cabin that only I know of. Come with me, we will go there. We can be together. We can live together for the rest of our lives, however short they may be.”

“Igor, don’t be a fool. Do you hear yourself? We can have a life here, a good long life. Dumbledore will see to it. He understands.”

“How could he understand? You have given everything up at his request. You say this is understanding?”

“Igor, we can fight here. We can be the first to show that queer wizards have a place on the right side of these wars.”

“There is no right side to wars, Dearest. Only the powerful and the lost.” Snape felt as if he was going to cry. “Please, come with me.”

“You know I cannot leave. Stay here, don’t be stubborn about this.”

“Dumbledore will not support us, Dearest. He only cares for himself.”

“Then we will show him just how useful we can be.”

“This is no life. Come with me, I won’t ask again.”

Snape started to cry.

“I can’t. I can’t, Igor. You know I can’t.”

“Goodbye then, Dearest.”

“Goodbye, my love.”

They kissed longer and deeper than they ever had before. Karkaroff wiped the tears from Snape’s face and paused to hold his eye contact before turning and running. Snape did the same. There was so much he would have to do. 

 

Snape stood alone in the gardens. All of the students had left the week before. After Karkaroff’s departure he couldn’t help but look at the students and wonder which ones of them would have to live like this, who would have to squeeze themselves into a world that could hardly even admit that they existed. He remembered being in their spot, doing everything he could to try and deny what he knew to be true about himself, trying so hard to convince himself that he wasn’t queer, that he wasn’t outside the norm. He had wanted it so bad. If only Karkaroff had stayed, they could have been an example to all of them. What would that have done for Snape at their age? He had never, in the wizarding world, seen two wizards or two witches living openly together as a couple. Maybe things would be different. Dumbledore sidled up to Snape intentionally causing enough noise to be noticed before startling him. 

“It’s for the best, Severus.” 

“Is it, Albus? Must we live like this?”

“This is the world as it is, we can only change the lives of those around us. There is too much at stake to risk anything bigger.”

“Would Voldemort have anyone to follow him if we were just to let people live as they were? We could strike a blow to him and live in the open, show people they don’t need to go about it his way.”

“Perhaps, Severus, but more likely everything we have worked for would be compromised. Our allies would turn their backs on us and we would be forced to fight and die on our own. If we are to be on the right side of this war we cannot fight it alone.”

Snape sat quietly staring at the horizon. All at once he knew, no matter the outcome, he’d never be one of the powerful.


End file.
